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I hate Magna Mundi because the mods are lazy and haven't yet ported it to a Wii version of Monopoly. I want to be able to land on Boardwalk and have pretender rebels pop up and charge me rent.

I have to agree. Its a very forceful argument.

"If we lose our Second Amendment, we lose our rights to bear arms and protect our families. If we're not able to own our own guns, the next thing that will happen is that we'll lose our freedom. We can't allow that to happen in our country." ~ Richard Childress

I hate the minus stability event spam. In my current game it takes me about three years to gain one stability level and during that time I'm spammed with perhaps five to ten events each giving me -1 or -2 stability. It's fine as long as I'm at -3 already, but it gets a bit IMPOSSIBLE when I try to get above -3. A minute ago I reached -2, but pretty much instantly (we're talking seconds, if even that) recieved an event that threw me back down to -3 again.

How am I supposed to gain stability? Getting as many loans that I can plus successfully attacking the entire world and demand all their money in the peace deals and use it all to invest into stability?

I hate the minus stability event spam. In my current game it takes me about three years to gain one stability level and during that time I'm spammed with perhaps five to ten events each giving me -1 or -2 stability. It's fine as long as I'm at -3 already, but it gets a bit IMPOSSIBLE when I try to get above -3. A minute ago I reached -2, but pretty much instantly (we're talking seconds, if even that) recieved an event that threw me back down to -3 again.

How am I supposed to gain stability? Getting as many loans that I can plus successfully attacking the entire world and demand all their money in the peace deals and use it all to invest into stability?

Are you under going some sort of revolution or societal change? Those can cause that.

Well, I'll bite since Ubik is a masochist. And I don't really think Magna Mundi sucks or I wouldn't have played about 6 campaigns in it now, almost all in the HRE because with no offence to any of the other guys working on this mod, but I have to say I enjoy Helius's work the most. But I always had a bias for the HRE dating back to EU2, so don't feel too bad. There's something about the supreme cluster**** that just appeals to me, especially since I like fighting more than colonizing or trading.

So what I think sucks about MMP:

Sieging isn't an option at all, at least if you go offensive, which I do. I can only assume life is better at the defensive end of things, but I don't know for sure. I take siege corps and get a 1 or 2 siege general, but forget it, I'm not going to be able to take down a level 9 fort, much less 12 fort without an assault. I've brought along artillery and a blockade (since the worst offenders seem to be on the coast always) and watched a 12k fort slowly fall to 6k defenders over decades. I've bribed my way up to 100% and still no dice. The AI will frequently fall victim to this as well, since the AI will not sign any treaty when a siege is in progress. Add a big fort and impossible rolls and you have a problem.

Bribing defenders of a country you're at war shouldn't cost you any BB if caught. You're already at war... This would make this spy mission more useful by far. Several of the espionage missions could use some similar examination, several of them are not going to be worth the badboy risk. Some of them are probably not even worth any money. It's not harmful to have a few of these IMO since that would make spies more of a routine part of the game and less of a novelty only when you want something very specific done. Of course it must be balanced.

Vassals breaking vassalage and you being powerless to stop this.

Backstab... Anything where part of your country gets to secede unmolested is bad in my opinion. Far better to have something like the Netherlands events (maybe without the stabhit) and spawn a bunch of rebels.

I don't think army size modifiers scale well. Particularly I'm almost 100% positive that there's a sweet spot for nations where having a smaller army actually means you have higher yearly manpower and ironically means you can lose more troops per year. This is silly, IMO. Diminishing returns are a good thing, but you should never have less overall capability for having more troops.

HRE modifiers. I just quit out from a particularly frustrating game where I was being hit with a -48 manpower and diplomacy modifiers since I was getting hit with budget restrictions for being a badboy. It's great the Reichstag wanted to punish me, but the punishment should never exceed the bonus from the HRE-- which was 17.5. The end result was that I had no manpower whatsoever and no manpower pool, with a relatively small 20k army which eventually was worn down by the incessant rebels spawned by spies of all the nations around me who hated me for being a badboy. It was just too unbelievable for me-- even if the entire HRE hates me and gives me no support, I shouldn't be any worse off than any other random badboy!

HRE Penalties in general just suck too much. It achieves the affect of making one not misbehave in the HRE, but it accomplishes it via somewhat unbelievable penalties. Am I really, really going to get 50% less tax since the Emperor's pissed off at me? OTOH, the merchants getting expelled from Imperial Centers of Trade not owned by you is a very good penalty IMO.

Vassal events. Getting hit with a stabhit by your one province minor is not a fun thing when you are 100 provinces. Likewise, a 10% tax hit for your stupid vassal isn't proportional in the least. It makes having even the most trivial of vassals potentially annoying and more trouble than its worth to keep around. And forget about growing a vassal because that just makes it worse. If you don't want them to just be 'speedbumps to annexation' you have other tools such as the relations adjustment you use with personal unions to prevent annexation if certain conditions and concessions are not met. It always struck me as odd too that I could diploannex a country and they wouldn't be at least as insistent on rights as the lesser partner of a PU... You can possibly also prevent the human from exploiting a large army of vassals too by playing with events breaking alliances with the overlord.

The last two can be generalized in a 'penalty out of proportion' or 'doesn't make sense' category. There's quite a few things like this in the mod. I know this is pretty vague, but I know it when I see it :P.

Nobel rebels (and probably others) can get out of control. The MTTH to firing the recapture event can probably be lowered, plus it's quite annoying when you've retaken a town and moved on and the rebels are still spawning there. At the very least, put a check to see if the town is rebel controlled before spawning more rebels there... Incidentally, I had my government fall to noble rebels (see HRE Budget Restrictions + small army + noble rebellion after monarch death), but amazingly the bastards just kept spawning even after I collapsed. Yikes.

In general the AI seems a bit too willing to buddy buddy with you when it has cores on your territory. Might be worth considering capping relations in this case. Or perhaps some event chain for a resolution-- if it doesn't like you very much, this could escalate into war, and if it likes you, it may voluntarily renounce the core, or you can pay it a bribe to renounce it. Might also be quite interesting if the same events can flip the script on you and force you to make a decision on a claim. Even if such an occurence is not very frequent, 200 years is a long time and there's no sense of urgency to reclaim what's "yours".

Resettlement events. I think that making these more than just a simple culture flip was good, but I lament the fact that you don't really see these in game for many countries at least. Also, at -1 stab and 10% of a 250k+ capital to change the culture in some basically random and possibly worthless other province? Doesn't sound like a particularly great trade since we actually have to care about our population now since it's useful all the way up to 999999. Cores just make the chance worse, and this won't even fire if you're in certain areas such as the HRE (which makes me sad, so I modded that requirement out, although I never managed to succeed anyway). I'd rather see periodic migration events from state culture to neighboring provinces. 200k min requirement in the capital basically means that very very very few countries will see even one of these during the course of a game. One possible solution would be to just keep a value for each province, just like Jews, perhaps. When that value is over half the pop of a province, flip the culture. You could even theoretically do it for all cultures, but that's probably too many variables to keep track of, so just the present country's primary culture can be considered.

siege dispute

Zeitgeist, I agree with alot of your points, especially about the scaling stuff. My issues with scaling are actually single province decisions that scale - such as provincial court and looking for metals scaling upward to (not kidding) the point where I have gotten a 100,000+ ducat option to have a chance to find precious metals in one province! I don't mind global things such as district administrations scaling, but one provice decisions should, imo, stay standard, as a 100 province empire would presumably have to spend the money 100 times to get the effect; it is automatically scaled.

However (and you noted it), given that there are limits on the tools the modders have availible, I think this has been an AWEOSME mod so far, especially as I am not willing to put forth the effort to learn to make game changes of any depth myself

However, I think you are wrong on one issue, the sieges. If you take military engineers, and build priories of St. John in order to get a 3+ seige advisor, and make an army academy (all fairly cheap overall, I did those in a nearly pure monetary build country, on the way to the scientific revolution idea), you can consistently, cheaply get 2-3 siege generals, and they will tear up almost all fortifications I run into with 4-5 infantry and 2-3 cannon regiments, and have very low attrition. For a military empire,this seems a cheap investment overall.

Personally, I don't find the few military campaigns I fight to be terribly difficult (unless I am a 1-5 province minor and bring the emperor down on me... man o man that hurts lol), it is the diplomatic pressure, economic damage, and rebellions at home afterwards that keeps me mostly peaceful except for small, strategic strikes on very key provinces, usually after a fabricate claims mission.

However, I think you are wrong on one issue, the sieges. If you take military engineers, and build priories of St. John in order to get a 3+ seige advisor, and make an army academy (all fairly cheap overall, I did those in a nearly pure monetary build country, on the way to the scientific revolution idea), you can consistently, cheaply get 2-3 siege generals, and they will tear up almost all fortifications I run into with 4-5 infantry and 2-3 cannon regiments, and have very low attrition. For a military empire,this seems a cheap investment overall.

I do build priories and get the military academy, but I haven't been using hiring fair in those provinces for the Knight advisors. I'll give it a try my next game-- thanks for the tip. But 4-5 infantry and 2-3 cannon are not enough to even siege a level 9 fort or a level 12 fort, so that makes me think it's still early in your game. I have taken down 7k forts via a siege with a 2 star siege general.

Well, I'll bite since Ubik is a masochist. And I don't really think Magna Mundi sucks or I wouldn't have played about 6 campaigns in it now, almost all in the HRE because with no offence to any of the other guys working on this mod, but I have to say I enjoy Helius's work the most. But I always had a bias for the HRE dating back to EU2, so don't feel too bad. There's something about the supreme cluster**** that just appeals to me, especially since I like fighting more than colonizing or trading.

So what I think sucks about MMP:

Sieging isn't an option at all, at least if you go offensive, which I do. I can only assume life is better at the defensive end of things, but I don't know for sure. I take siege corps and get a 1 or 2 siege general, but forget it, I'm not going to be able to take down a level 9 fort, much less 12 fort without an assault. I've brought along artillery and a blockade (since the worst offenders seem to be on the coast always) and watched a 12k fort slowly fall to 6k defenders over decades. I've bribed my way up to 100% and still no dice. The AI will frequently fall victim to this as well, since the AI will not sign any treaty when a siege is in progress. Add a big fort and impossible rolls and you have a problem.

Bribing defenders of a country you're at war shouldn't cost you any BB if caught. You're already at war... This would make this spy mission more useful by far. Several of the espionage missions could use some similar examination, several of them are not going to be worth the badboy risk. Some of them are probably not even worth any money. It's not harmful to have a few of these IMO since that would make spies more of a routine part of the game and less of a novelty only when you want something very specific done. Of course it must be balanced.

Vassals breaking vassalage and you being powerless to stop this.

Backstab... Anything where part of your country gets to secede unmolested is bad in my opinion. Far better to have something like the Netherlands events (maybe without the stabhit) and spawn a bunch of rebels.

I don't think army size modifiers scale well. Particularly I'm almost 100% positive that there's a sweet spot for nations where having a smaller army actually means you have higher yearly manpower and ironically means you can lose more troops per year. This is silly, IMO. Diminishing returns are a good thing, but you should never have less overall capability for having more troops.

HRE modifiers. I just quit out from a particularly frustrating game where I was being hit with a -48 manpower and diplomacy modifiers since I was getting hit with budget restrictions for being a badboy. It's great the Reichstag wanted to punish me, but the punishment should never exceed the bonus from the HRE-- which was 17.5. The end result was that I had no manpower whatsoever and no manpower pool, with a relatively small 20k army which eventually was worn down by the incessant rebels spawned by spies of all the nations around me who hated me for being a badboy. It was just too unbelievable for me-- even if the entire HRE hates me and gives me no support, I shouldn't be any worse off than any other random badboy!

HRE Penalties in general just suck too much. It achieves the affect of making one not misbehave in the HRE, but it accomplishes it via somewhat unbelievable penalties. Am I really, really going to get 50% less tax since the Emperor's pissed off at me? OTOH, the merchants getting expelled from Imperial Centers of Trade not owned by you is a very good penalty IMO.

Vassal events. Getting hit with a stabhit by your one province minor is not a fun thing when you are 100 provinces. Likewise, a 10% tax hit for your stupid vassal isn't proportional in the least. It makes having even the most trivial of vassals potentially annoying and more trouble than its worth to keep around. And forget about growing a vassal because that just makes it worse. If you don't want them to just be 'speedbumps to annexation' you have other tools such as the relations adjustment you use with personal unions to prevent annexation if certain conditions and concessions are not met. It always struck me as odd too that I could diploannex a country and they wouldn't be at least as insistent on rights as the lesser partner of a PU... You can possibly also prevent the human from exploiting a large army of vassals too by playing with events breaking alliances with the overlord.

The last two can be generalized in a 'penalty out of proportion' or 'doesn't make sense' category. There's quite a few things like this in the mod. I know this is pretty vague, but I know it when I see it :P.

Nobel rebels (and probably others) can get out of control. The MTTH to firing the recapture event can probably be lowered, plus it's quite annoying when you've retaken a town and moved on and the rebels are still spawning there. At the very least, put a check to see if the town is rebel controlled before spawning more rebels there... Incidentally, I had my government fall to noble rebels (see HRE Budget Restrictions + small army + noble rebellion after monarch death), but amazingly the bastards just kept spawning even after I collapsed. Yikes.

In general the AI seems a bit too willing to buddy buddy with you when it has cores on your territory. Might be worth considering capping relations in this case. Or perhaps some event chain for a resolution-- if it doesn't like you very much, this could escalate into war, and if it likes you, it may voluntarily renounce the core, or you can pay it a bribe to renounce it. Might also be quite interesting if the same events can flip the script on you and force you to make a decision on a claim. Even if such an occurence is not very frequent, 200 years is a long time and there's no sense of urgency to reclaim what's "yours".

Resettlement events. I think that making these more than just a simple culture flip was good, but I lament the fact that you don't really see these in game for many countries at least. Also, at -1 stab and 10% of a 250k+ capital to change the culture in some basically random and possibly worthless other province? Doesn't sound like a particularly great trade since we actually have to care about our population now since it's useful all the way up to 999999. Cores just make the chance worse, and this won't even fire if you're in certain areas such as the HRE (which makes me sad, so I modded that requirement out, although I never managed to succeed anyway). I'd rather see periodic migration events from state culture to neighboring provinces. 200k min requirement in the capital basically means that very very very few countries will see even one of these during the course of a game. One possible solution would be to just keep a value for each province, just like Jews, perhaps. When that value is over half the pop of a province, flip the culture. You could even theoretically do it for all cultures, but that's probably too many variables to keep track of, so just the present country's primary culture can be considered.

First things first, this post should not be in this thread. Its title and previous criticisms fail miserably to do justice to the maturity of this critique.

Anyway one by one:

1) Sieging:

In my game, I am at 1720 and there are hardly anything bigger than level 8 forts around. And these ones are rare. My biggest fort is a level 6.

This being said, I don't want to make sieging impossible at whatever levels. What I want is first and foremost to stop the vanilla nonsense of having entire provinces to fall to the enemy until very late in the game with no effort at all. Second, to make level 10-12 forts RARE. Such forts are not supposed to be built by minor countries.

Starting in 1.15 there were a series of steps going in that direction. The ability for nations to amass wealth has been curtailed which in practice means they will not be able to save so often quantities to build the higher level structures.

In 1.20, I doubt you can see again a minor holding or a small country to be able to build anything above level 6 forts (every province gets one level bonus and capital yet another), so you end up with 8000 guys inside the walls). Thats because they get a penalty in that area.

So, yes, I agree with you that if the llandscape is filled with forts level 9-12 things are NOT balanced. So far in my game I have not seen it, but you are not the first to complain. I wonder what would happen on a game started by 1.20 though...

2) BB for some spy missions:

Entirely agreed. Will be reviewed for next version.

3,4) Vassalage and Releasing Vassals:

Like any decision you make in life, there are pros and cons to it. You cannot control the decisions of your vassals. They are not lemmings that follow you. You know what influences the vassal behaviour and you must balance everything in order to have a better chance of nobody trying to break away. But lets face it, if you are a vassal, what is one of your first objectives (without any strategic considerations pertaining the actual balance of power on the game board)? Break the vassalage, of course! How did you feel if the overlord got an event that even at a penalty to him, prevented you from severing the vassalage ties? Was it fair or would you claim I was not considering the free will of your country? Why would the AI be diferent?

Basically, if you are very careful and plan your policies to support a vassalage strategy (and this does not apply to countries with one or two vassals, as in that case the chances of vassal breaking are very negligible whatever the other modifiers), you can hope to keep a significant ammount of vassals int he knowledge that each one you add to the mix represents a new chance for a vassal to break away, as each vassal is deciding on its own.

I suspect if you are complaining about vassals you are either trying to keep a huge number of them OR you are simply not adapting the core strategy of your game to the core strategy of your growth: Vassalizing.

In regards with vassal releasing, its simple. The event is designed to arbitrarily protect the player: Instead of what could happen in reality where the worst can happen at the greatest of moments, it is impossible to experience this event if a country is at stability >0.

Now, this event will not happen frequently otherwise (it has an average time to fire of 50 years - recall, you are only subject ot it if below 1 stability and a 0 stability makes the average time at 100 years), unless a player tries really HARD. What I mean is if a player tries to stay at -3 stability, is centralized at 3 and has an halfwit as ruler (ADM 3), he will experience this event on average once every 3 and a half years.

Now, before I'll give you some other scenarios to show you this is not unfair, let me ask you a question? What would independentist forces did if their country was completely unstable, had an halfwit for ruler and this ruler enforced a centralization policy that went anathema to their desires? Inb my point of view, it is simple: They would seize the oportunity and defect.

Ouch! 3 and a half years? That is not fair!!! Sure not, specially because we are seeing one of the worst possible scenarios.

Now, if you consider the average scenario, you'll see this event will hapen seldom in the game as long as the player does not plays with the matchbox near the gasoline, meaning, not going radical in terms of centralization and keeping an eye on stability. Remember the event can only fire AT ALL if you are below 1 stability. Speaking for myself, I spend about 80% of my game above 0 stab. And you?

5) I think it is working pretty well and it even controls the type of armies the AI presents.

6) HRE modifiers.

So, you went against your fellow HRE members again and again and thought you could get away with it. No. They want to eat you alive. You are seen as a danger to the entire HRE power balance. They want to finish you politically.

7) Vassals, take 2:

I don't know what the size of Tibet is compared to the whole China, but maybe it is feasible it decreases its stability by one given the current political situation there.

Penalties and bonuses DO scale. The bigger the number of vassals, the bigger the bonuses/penalties. Not everything scales, but most certainly will.

Anyway, if you grew to one hundred provinces in size, you are close to beat the game. Congratulations!

8) Noble rebels:

I don't see any problems with noble rebels. Right now they seem to be pretty balanced in their spawning. Your problem is THIS:

Well, one of the biggest consequences of IN in terms of AI is that now it doesn't act like the raving lunatic as before. The AI will bid its time until it is the perfect chance to get what it claims. I like this cautious behaviour on the part of the AI. In the long run, it turns the game more challenging for the player.
As for meddling too much with cores, it easily destroys the game balance.

10) Migrations:

If we loosen the requierements it would become a fantasy scenario all too soon. The point being, except for mass kilings, it is extremely dificult to flip a culture. Culture is the most resilient bond humans share.

I do have a question for you too... One thing that intrigues me is why nobody compaints about events that give bonuses to the players.

Why nobody tells an event that gives you a fort disrupts the balance? Why an event that gives you 250 gold outright disrupts the balance? why an event that enables you to get out from rock bottom stability at double speed does not break the balance? why an event that gives you a boost of 1000 gold to all techs does not break the balance? Why events that decrease your BB when it is close to the limit are not breaking the balance? Why the bonuses without penalties of being between -2 and +2 in all policies do not break the balance in the ong run and are "wrong"?... WHY?

Had a game as the Knights, got my navy sent to the bottom by Turks and my little island besieged. 150 years later and Turks made no progress. The game is quite uneventful at this point and yet I still find things to do. My economy prospers (no maintenance to pay), I have saved about 3,000 ducats. Occasionally, the mod gives me a free ship or two, which I give to the best of my admirals and they attempt to relieve the blockade only to be sent to the bottom of the sea after initial victory or two.

If I really wanted to complain about something it would this: why can't the Ottomans finish me off? Still, I suspect this is a vanilla AI issue and not MMP, but shouldn't war exhaustion from a 150-year long siege cause enough damange to the Turks for them to accept a 600 ducats bribe and agree to peace?

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Originally Posted by ubik

This only fire if the Turks are a major or great power and hold some key provinces in Hungary themselves.

They hold one (Carpathia), surrounded by lots of mine (I'm Poland), and there's a wall of Serbo-Wallachia between the OE and me. Poland is major power, has more troops than the OE, and has cores on provinces in question. I see not why would anybody want to recreate Hungary in that case, and even less why would anybody want to transfer even a single province to Austria.

Originally Posted by alvya

A TRAITOR, A TRAITOR.
Zmaj, when did you pledge allegiance to the rebels?

When the system that should keep the Turks in check made my BB go through the roof and stopped me from keeping the Turks in check.

In my game, I am at 1720 and there are hardly anything bigger than level 8 forts around. And these ones are rare. My biggest fort is a level 6.

This being said, I don't want to make sieging impossible at whatever levels. What I want is first and foremost to stop the vanilla nonsense of having entire provinces to fall to the enemy until very late in the game with no effort at all. Second, to make level 10-12 forts RARE. Such forts are not supposed to be built by minor countries.

Starting in 1.15 there were a series of steps going in that direction. The ability for nations to amass wealth has been curtailed which in practice means they will not be able to save so often quantities to build the higher level structures.

In 1.20, I doubt you can see again a minor holding or a small country to be able to build anything above level 6 forts (every province gets one level bonus and capital yet another), so you end up with 8000 guys inside the walls). Thats because they get a penalty in that area.

So, yes, I agree with you that if the landscape is filled with forts level 9-12 things are NOT balanced. So far in my game I have not seen it, but you are not the first to complain. I wonder what would happen on a game started by 1.20 though...

The last game I was playing is a 1.20 game and although I think you are right that there are fewer humongous forts, there are still a few, and the sieging issues I have have continued. I spent 8 years at Oldenburg at a level 9 fort which I blockaded for instance with a siege 2 general and 11k artillery before I finally just gave up and brought in 30k troops for an assault.

Originally Posted by ubik

3,4) Vassalage and Releasing Vassals:

Like any decision you make in life, there are pros and cons to it. You cannot control the decisions of your vassals. They are not lemmings that follow you. You know what influences the vassal behaviour and you must balance everything in order to have a better chance of nobody trying to break away. But lets face it, if you are a vassal, what is one of your first objectives (without any strategic considerations pertaining the actual balance of power on the game board)? Break the vassalage, of course! How did you feel if the overlord got an event that even at a penalty to him, prevented you from severing the vassalage ties? Was it fair or would you claim I was not considering the free will of your country? Why would the AI be diferent?

Basically, if you are very careful and plan your policies to support a vassalage strategy (and this does not apply to countries with one or two vassals, as in that case the chances of vassal breaking are very negligible whatever the other modifiers), you can hope to keep a significant ammount of vassals int he knowledge that each one you add to the mix represents a new chance for a vassal to break away, as each vassal is deciding on its own.

I agree in some parts with what you are saying and I can definitely see your viewpoint. However in terms of what these mechanics actually do, these kinds of things encourage the player to use more violent means than I would have otherwise just in order to avoid vassals. I go out of my way to force annex (and yes eat the BB) just so I don't have to deal with a vassal for instance. I don't want them to be lemmings, but I think there are other alternatives to just removing vassalage that reduce its value

Originally Posted by ubik

I suspect if you are complaining about vassals you are either trying to keep a huge number of them OR you are simply not adapting the core strategy of your game to the core strategy of your growth: Vassalizing.

Possibly. I read the manual and so I usually keep three vassals or less, occasionally going up to four, but I still have frequent issues with disloyal vassals. I don't have any issue with making breaking vassalization harder to do for a human, it really seems to easy in most instances. My last game started with that-- I wanted to play the Netherlands and a 1453 start, so I took Burgundy, released the NL and reloaded as them. Guess what one of my first moves was? There were no repercussions of course, except for poor Burgundy. I at least deserved some kind of smackdown from them for doing that... My last game I had one instance where three out of five (OK I got too greedy) vassals, all of them one province minors broke away at once.

I don't even have a problem with the idea of breaking vassalage so much as for the inherently one sided thing that goes on with it. "Vassal is leaving" --> "Rats." Ideally there should be some build up or some event pool in which the diplomatic repercussions are more fleshed out. At a minimum, the overlord should get an option to go to war, but more ideally there should be some sort of continuum. For example, capped relations (= no diplo annexation), no income, no manpower, no alliance are all things that can be just as effective in some sense. If all the nobles have to do is pay lip service, I think they might just do that... The whole process should be more interactive and you shouldn't feel just like this bad thing is happening and there's no recourse. At the very least, the overlord should have a path to open war possibly even without a further stability hit. Same goes for the human and the AI of course when the roles are reversed of course-- fire this event on the manual cancellation of vassalization.

Similarly, I don't even mind the backstab events or the philosophical ideas behind them, but it should be a independence war at a minimum. You can give the defectors some bonuses or whatever you need to for them to have a chance, although obviously this can be difficult to balance.

Originally Posted by ubik

In regards with vassal releasing, its simple. The event is designed to arbitrarily protect the player: Instead of what could happen in reality where the worst can happen at the greatest of moments, it is impossible to experience this event if a country is at stability >0.

Now, this event will not happen frequently otherwise (it has an average time to fire of 50 years - recall, you are only subject ot it if below 1 stability and a 0 stability makes the average time at 100 years), unless a player tries really HARD. What I mean is if a player tries to stay at -3 stability, is centralized at 3 and has an halfwit as ruler (ADM 3), he will experience this event on average once every 3 and a half years.

Now, before I'll give you some other scenarios to show you this is not unfair, let me ask you a question? What would independentist forces did if their country was completely unstable, had an halfwit for ruler and this ruler enforced a centralization policy that went anathema to their desires? Inb my point of view, it is simple: They would seize the oportunity and defect.

Ouch! 3 and a half years? That is not fair!!! Sure not, specially because we are seeing one of the worst possible scenarios.

Now, if you consider the average scenario, you'll see this event will hapen seldom in the game as long as the player does not plays with the matchbox near the gasoline, meaning, not going radical in terms of centralization and keeping an eye on stability. Remember the event can only fire AT ALL if you are below 1 stability. Speaking for myself, I spend about 80% of my game above 0 stab. And you?

Don't really have any complaints about stability. I mostly stay around 1. I also stay in the middle of centralization.

Originally Posted by ubik

5) I think it is working pretty well and it even controls the type of armies the AI presents.

I agree this works generally well, but I think you can achieve the same things without generating this strange effect by adjusting a few parameters. Obviously you won't run into it unless you are large, but I can see historical Russia or OE running into these issues, to say nothing of ahistorical player empires. A minimum manpower like you seem to have for tax value might come in handy here instead of trying to balance very disparate bonuses.

6) HRE modifiers.

So, you went against your fellow HRE members again and again and thought you could get away with it. No. They want to eat you alive. You are seen as a danger to the entire HRE power balance. They want to finish you politically.

Finishing me politically is absolutely good. If they all want to gang up and DoW me, I say go for it. If they forcibly depose me as Emperor, so much the better-- they ought to since I'm such a bastard. My point is that causing that to happen by inflicting 0 manpower per month / total (=no reinforcements or ability to build troops besides mercenaries+ on me is just beyond frustrating and worse, no fun. I'm a badboy true but shouldn't I still at least have some (within my nation) base of power?

Originally Posted by ubik

7) Vassals, take 2:

I don't know what the size of Tibet is compared to the whole China, but maybe it is feasible it decreases its stability by one given the current political situation there.

Penalties and bonuses DO scale. The bigger the number of vassals, the bigger the bonuses/penalties. Not everything scales, but most certainly will.

It seems unlikely. I doubt China is paying 10% of its tax for Tibet or 20% of its manpower, etc etc. Yes, it's true that unrest might spread for whatever reason. Anyway as we all know, Tibet is an "integral" part of China . I think in gameplay terms though you have to ask the question: Is having Tibet as a vassal more beneficial over the course of the game than not having Tibet as a vassal? And since that question is not a no-brainer, that's in my opinion a problem.

Originally Posted by ubik

Anyway, if you grew to one hundred provinces in size, you are close to beat the game. Congratulations!

It was an example, but the same principle holds for thirty. And I don't think it's exactly "beating the game" as you say. That would be at least two hundred provinces. But I think a colonial could reach that size, although a blob in the HRE as I like to try is ridiculously powerful.

Originally Posted by ubik

8) Noble rebels:

I don't see any problems with noble rebels. Right now they seem to be pretty balanced in their spawning. Your problem is THIS:

I wasn't specific enough. I'm not referring to the power of the rebel spawns. I'm referring specifically to the case that when you retake a rebel province and your army moves on, you still get large stacks spawning in the retaken province! The MTTH on the submission event is too low is my point, or at the very least rebels should not spawn.

Originally Posted by ubik

9) AI buddy, buddy:

Well, one of the biggest consequences of IN in terms of AI is that now it doesn't act like the raving lunatic as before. The AI will bid its time until it is the perfect chance to get what it claims. I like this cautious behaviour on the part of the AI. In the long run, it turns the game more challenging for the player.
As for meddling too much with cores, it easily destroys the game balance.

You might be right here, but it doesn't even seem to have a negative influence on relations. I've had three or four games where France never bothers to contest its cores with me as HRE, and there were definitely times when I was vulnerable since I have a tendency to occasionally bite off more than I can chew.

Originally Posted by ubik

If we loosen the requierements it would become a fantasy scenario all too soon. The point being, except for mass kilings, it is extremely dificult to flip a culture. Culture is the most resilient bond humans share.

I am unconvinced of the truth of this statement. I don't see how migrations to neighboring provinces would be ahistorical at all. If anything, having it basically never happen is ahistorical. I'm of the opinion that if the borders of various empires had shaped up differently, groups would likely also be identifying differently today.

Originally Posted by ubik

I do have a question for you too... One thing that intrigues me is why nobody compaints about events that give bonuses to the players.

Why nobody tells an event that gives you a fort disrupts the balance? Why an event that gives you 250 gold outright disrupts the balance? why an event that enables you to get out from rock bottom stability at double speed does not break the balance? why an event that gives you a boost of 1000 gold to all techs does not break the balance? Why events that decrease your BB when it is close to the limit are not breaking the balance? Why the bonuses without penalties of being between -2 and +2 in all policies do not break the balance in the ong run and are "wrong"?... WHY?

Of course we never complain about things that help us since it's human nature. We all like to win. It's the ones that get in our way and frustrate us that get the attention And of course that's difficult to balance around. You could just make a big event that forced every country into a PU with the human, and then people would play it, dismiss it as 'too easy' and then stop playing your game. So the goal is to frustrate the player without frustrating him too much at any point. This of course makes adding depth challenging.

But since you're asking for it, one event that really sticks out in my mind is:

Cheap Jesuit Universities at 1k-- I get about 10-15 a game when I stay Catholic. Building those universities otherwise would take much much much more money.

Why nobody tells an event that gives you a fort disrupts the balance? Why an event that gives you 250 gold outright disrupts the balance? why an event that enables you to get out from rock bottom stability at double speed does not break the balance? why an event that gives you a boost of 1000 gold to all techs does not break the balance? Why events that decrease your BB when it is close to the limit are not breaking the balance? Why the bonuses without penalties of being between -2 and +2 in all policies do not break the balance in the ong run and are "wrong"?... WHY?

Those things can happen? Well, I've gotten free forts, but not nearly as many as forts I've paid to repair. I do like the scaled cost on that event, its entirely reasonable. If free forts happened alot, it would be a problem. I've not noticed it doing so.

I've never gotten anywhere near 250d from an event. As Sicily, I once got a gift for 9d, though :P Actually, I think the most I've gotten is 100d. I don't think I've ever been at -3 stability long, so I don't know about that event. I suppose it depends on whether it has other costs. What event gives +1000 to all techs and how do I trigger it?

I haven't actually played with the +/-2 bonuses, but presumably they are balanced against the inability to get the bonuses of taking extremes?

I do agree the Jesuit universities are a very, very good deal. Less than half what I'd be paying otherwise. Not that I usually have the cash on hand to pay for them, but I have built some. Jesuits haven't caused me any counterbalancing problems so far..... The missionary events are amusing, because I'm so far towards innovative that I don't get any missionaries to actually take advantage of them.

Obviously, the things that make the game less fun are the ones that are going to get the most complaints. That's the main reason why my number one issue is the steep costs on all the provincial decisions. It makes the game less fun because it pretty much rules out provincial decisions entirely. The only three I can think of ever using are "Settling Jews", the one time tax setting, and "land enclosures" now that its not costing stability. A lot of the national decisions are tipped from maybe to ugh also, but that's substantially less of an issue. Its the provinces that matter, because for the decisions (and several of the buildings.. temples and courthouses, especially) you need to be able to apply them widely or they irrelevant.

I hate the minus stability event spam. In my current game it takes me about three years to gain one stability level and during that time I'm spammed with perhaps five to ten events each giving me -1 or -2 stability. It's fine as long as I'm at -3 already, but it gets a bit IMPOSSIBLE when I try to get above -3. A minute ago I reached -2, but pretty much instantly (we're talking seconds, if even that) recieved an event that threw me back down to -3 again.

How am I supposed to gain stability? Getting as many loans that I can plus successfully attacking the entire world and demand all their money in the peace deals and use it all to invest into stability?

You must be going over some kind of very nasty vent pool. Did you change ideas? Are you in a civil war? War of the Roses? Noble opposition? Succession war?

One thing I am sure of is about the lack of single events that drop reputation without a strong cause. Those events have now a MTTH of 20000 years.

Maybe the best way to understand your plight is to tell us what events are you getting (their title).

One cannot bullrush through Magna Mundi Platuinum. There are lots of pits carefully spread in which the unawary player may fall. Of course, it becomes second nature when you get experienced.

If I really wanted to complain about something it would this: why can't the Ottomans finish me off? Still, I suspect this is a vanilla AI issue and not MMP, but shouldn't war exhaustion from a 150-year long siege cause enough damange to the Turks for them to accept a 600 ducats bribe and agree to peace?

Obviously, there is a problem somewhere but we may very well share responsibilities with Paradox. What is your fortress size?

Obviously, the things that make the game less fun are the ones that are going to get the most complaints. That's the main reason why my number one issue is the steep costs on all the provincial decisions. It makes the game less fun because it pretty much rules out provincial decisions entirely. The only three I can think of ever using are "Settling Jews", the one time tax setting, and "land enclosures" now that its not costing stability. A lot of the national decisions are tipped from maybe to ugh also, but that's substantially less of an issue. Its the provinces that matter, because for the decisions (and several of the buildings.. temples and courthouses, especially) you need to be able to apply them widely or they irrelevant.

I do think that some of the scaling on the decisions is.. flawed. Setting up academies for both Naval and Land, academies which appear to last only a relatively short time... yet they cost how many times your GNP? It's an easy decision: "NIET!" Several of the province decisions are similar, without any seeming justification - these should be fixed costs based on your current inflation level, surely?

To be fair, scaling of certain decisions/events is indeed quite funny.

Have you considered adjusting them to add more relation between investment level and probablity of sucess instead of simple "give me all your money now"? I'm thinking mainly about whole exploration event chain, with initial event practically requiring you to take multiple loans just to obtain single explorer. I'm of course aware that such single explorer in right hands can do so much that price have to factor that, but still...

Are there any way to make it more controllable? Like adjusting levels of naval attrition if you choose "economical" (and more realistic) exploration option? Or maybe something other, that can kill our explorer prematurely if we choose to equip expedition in "second hand" stuff?

I do think that some of the scaling on the decisions is.. flawed. Setting up academies for both Naval and Land, academies which appear to last only a relatively short time... yet they cost how many times your GNP? It's an easy decision: "NIET!" Several of the province decisions are similar, without any seeming justification - these should be fixed costs based on your current inflation level, surely?

Steve.

Basically, we are giving tradition and/or generals/admirals. You probably never need again to buy a general/admiral... or maybe you buy one, but a truly good one. In a word, we are offering you LEADERSHIP.

As for the "relatively short time" we are talking about 50 years. And after those 50 years you'll get a chance to fund it again at a lower price. Finally, it is not "How many times" but a quarter of your GNP.

Basically, it all boils down to writing without knowing the subject matter.

To be fair, scaling of certain decisions/events is indeed quite funny.

Have you considered adjusting them to add more relation between investment level and probablity of sucess instead of simple "give me all your money now"? I'm thinking mainly about whole exploration event chain, with initial event practically requiring you to take multiple loans just to obtain single explorer. I'm of course aware that such single explorer in right hands can do so much that price have to factor that, but still...

Are there any way to make it more controllable? Like adjusting levels of naval attrition if you choose "economical" (and more realistic) exploration option? Or maybe something other, that can kill our explorer prematurely if we choose to equip expedition in "second hand" stuff?

With the exception of the digging for mineral events, they are balanced. Those digging for mineral events will be fixed for 1.25.

There are already events to give explorers. You already have the range options to decrease naval attrition. You have a national idea that increases your naval attrition dramatically. I find the current naval attrition too low, tbh.